Libya

The Turkish government's Syria policy was based on the assumption that the U.S. and the West would put their weight behind toppling the Bashar al-Assad regime in the fall of 2011, as in Libya earlier in the same year. 

Top military commanders from 30 nations fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gathered Feb. 22 in Kuwait to discuss ways to defeat the jihadists who occupy large areas in Syria and Iraq.

Kuwaiti Chief of Staff Gen. Mohammad al-Khader urged increased efforts to defeat extremists worldwide.

Turkey has expressed willingness for Egypt to take part in a proposed working group formed to coordinate international efforts in Libya, which has been mired in conflict following an uprising that toppled veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi five years ago, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu has said. 

Ivica Dacic says "an official reply" from the United States was yet to arrive in the wake of the killing of two Serbian embassy staffers in Libya.

Speaking on Monday, the Serbian foreign minister said the question was whether the United States knew there were civilians in the building they targeted in an air strike on Friday.

The bodies of Jovica Stepic and Sladjana Stankovic, the Serbian embassy employees killed in a U.S. air strike in Libya, should be transferred to Serbia Monday.

General Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Veljko Odalovic, who has arrived in Libya, made the announcement.

The deaths of two Serbian embassy staffers in Libya took place against the backdrop of attempts of the West to pull that same Serbia into NATO.

Aleksandar Vucic has said he had several conversations with U.S. officials and Ambassador Kyle Scott about the Serbian citizens who were killed in Libya.

Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic - employees of the Serbian embassy in Libya kidnapped last year - have "probably been killed in a U.S. airstrike."

This was announced on Saturday by Serbia's foreign minister, Ivica Dacic. Speaking later in the day, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic confirmed that the two Serbians are among the victims.

Two Serbian embassy staff members abducted in Libya in November are believed to have been killed on Feb. 19 in U.S. air strikes on a suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) training camp, Serbia's foreign minister said on Feb. 20.

"We are united in grief after the death of our compatriots... Their bodies will be brought to Serbia late on Monday," Vucic told a press conference Saturday.

Serbian PM blamed Ahmed Abashi, a Libyan smuggler, for the kidnapping of two Serbian embassy officials.

Vucic also called on the remaining 250 Serbs to leave Libya immediately.